The Cockatrice

A cockatrice is a mythical beast, essentially a two-legged dragon with a rooster's head. Described by Laurence Breiner as "an ornament in the drama and poetry of the Elizabethans", it featured prominently in English thought and myth for centuries.

It has the reputed ability of killing people by either looking at them—"the death-darting eye of Cockatrice"—touching them, or sometimes breathing on them. It was reported in the late-medieval bestiaries that the weasel is the only animal that is immune to the glance of a cockatrice. It was also thought that a cockatrice would die instantly upon hearing a rooster crow, and according to legend, having a cockatrice look itself in a mirror is one of the few sure-fire ways to kill it.